4Oct 07

The very definition of a tune your milkman could whistle, this delivers its melodic payload right upfront and then just hangs around for a bit, tapping its toes and honking its horns until the party wanders off somewhere else. The Ingredient X that – I’m guessing – got this to Number One when many a good tune stumbled is Lyn Paul’s belting performance, short on subtlety but long on defiant gutsiness. She’s wound up in musical theatre, which based on this record shouldn’t surprise anyone.

Comments

I rather like this. Better than I seemed to remember it, or thought I would. The singing style is just what’s needed to drag the song out of pleasant humdrumness. I like the dirty sax too. A far cry from teaching the world to puke.

Marcello, please don’t reduce the wonderful Manny Tranny to the level of the company you’ve put them in. I’ll have more to say on the subject anon.

Also, apropos of Penny Lane the singer, and as we are marking (ad nauseam) the 40th birthday of Radio One, let’s those of us who are old enough recall that on its inception, Radio One was required to give over a fair slice of its air time to Live Music at the behest of the Musicians Union. Naturally, this didn’t mean top bands appearing in the studio, it meant the resident BBC dance orchestra fronted by third division cabaret singers like Penny Lane performing covers of hit songs. It was dismal, gruesome, and wince-inducing, and within a couple of years the practice was stopped.

Sadly, pleasant humdrumness about sums it up for me after a few listens. The performance isn’t bad at all, but as a kiss-off it pales against something like “You’re So Vain,” to name an admitted ringer for the type. It doesn’t seem that far of a cry from Tony Orlando, who’s gotten excorciated in these parts…

“Winchester Cathedral” is fantastic though! That makes me like this song a little bit more already. We’ll see it how it grows on me…

Erithian describes this as the last number one of the 50s, and in some ways that feels like a fair assessment. On the other hand, I don’t think this could have been made in this way in the fifties, because there’s something about the style of the vocal that wouldn’t be allowed in the fifties. I’m not sure that ‘raunchiness’ is the word – Shirley Bassey did raunchy in the 50s and Eartha Kitt did raunchy in spades, but this isn’t the same thing. I thought perhaps ‘blowsiness’ was nearer the mark. Whatever it is, it’s something very English, and Northern English at that. You could imagine it on a Saturday night in the Rovers Return, or at the end of Blackpool Pier.

There was a lot of retro stuff about at the time, perhaps because in the world it large it felt like a time when an old age was passing and a new one feeling its uncertain way in. This seems a good moment to give a mention to Norman ‘Hurricane’ Smith, sound engineer turned solo artiste, another retro act with a distinctly Oop North flavour. And Peter Skellern, of course.

I can just see Elsie Tanner singing this to herself as she’s putting on her lippy to go down the Rovers, as she bids farewell to another wrong ‘un. Sort of smouldering over the barm cakes and meat and potato pies.

My sister went to dancing school in Woodley, along with the Belcher sisters (the eldest, Lyn, had left by then), and if you check Lyn’s single “It ought to sell a million”, you’ll find “The Waiting Game” as written by her mum.

She then (my sister, that is) went onto a dancing college in CovGard area London, along with Emma Forbes, funnily enough.

Read with interest your comments about The New Seekers, particually Billy ‘your’ detailed list of TV appearances..where did this come from please? Have been trying, sadly in vain to obtain many of these clips and wondered if you have access to any of them please as we, the group would dearly love to re visit them! Great to see clips being added to ‘Youtube’, in particular from Totp’s ‘Circles’ and ‘Sentimental’. Have any of you seen the group on their recent 35th anniversary tour which finishes at Christchurch on October 27th ( 07). Dates for next year have been added to the group’s web sitehttp://www.thenewseekers.com
Will re visit you all soon

The information about the New Seekers’ television appearances comes from the online database of Kaleidoscope, the television archivists’ organisation – http://www.lostshows.com . They also publish a series of guides to drama and variety that are much more detailed than the online version.

I think that television companies are obliged to agree to reasonable requests to view material from people who were originally involved in the production, so if original New Seekers ask the archives directly they could well be successful.

Will be in contact with them next week then thank you, Paul and Marty enjoy all the old clips. I noticed that the M and W shows are being issued including one with all the Xmas specials so I expect the group to turn up on that with ‘Another Fool’. I think the Two Ronnies are being issued too…both of these series should also feature The group ‘Springfield Reival’ also created by Keith Potger. The New Seekers today has S Revs Mick Flinn ( also The Mixtures ) and Donna Jones.

Funny, last month we were all talking about RATM foiling Simon Cowell and preventing a song reaching number one just because it was on the biggest TV show of the day; then over Christmas the BBC showed the Morecambe and Wise Christmas Show from 1973 and there, on what was no doubt the biggest ratings-grabber of the year, were the New Seekers, who went on to be the first new number one of the new year. Nothing new under the sun!

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I'm writing about every UK number one single, in order. It's taken a while, it'll take a while longer. Wander around in the archives, or join in with the marvellous bunch of commenters we've managed to attract - new voices always very welcome!

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